1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight assembly and a display device having the backlight assembly. More particularly, the present invention relates to a backlight assembly having a reduced number of elements for driving lamps, and a display device having the backlight assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a liquid crystal display (LCD) device displays images by controlling an optical transmittance of each pixel arranged in a matrix shape. The LCD device uses light provided by a backlight assembly to display images.
The LCD device includes an LCD panel having a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix shape, a driver integrated circuit (IC) that drives pixels of the LCD panel, and a backlight assembly that provides the LCD panel with light.
The backlight assembly may be classified as either a direct illumination type or an edge illumination type. According to the direct illumination type backlight assembly, a light source such as a lamp is disposed under the LCD panel to provide the liquid crystal panel with light. According to the edge illumination type backlight assembly, a light guide plate is disposed under the LCD panel and a light source such as a lamp is disposed at a side of the light guide plate, so that light generated by the light source is applied to the liquid crystal panel through the light guide plate.
The direction illumination type backlight assembly has relatively lower luminance uniformity and durability, but high light-using efficiency and luminance because a plurality of lamps is driven in parallel. Therefore, the direct illumination type backlight assembly is primarily used in large-sized LCD devices.
In order to drive the lamps in parallel, a conventional LCD device includes an inverter master, an inverter slave and a return wire. The inverter master provides a hot electrode of each of the lamps with a lamp-driving voltage, and the inverter slave grounds a cold electrode of each of the lamps, and provides a conducting pattern for feeding electric current outputted from the cold electrode back to the inverter master. The return wire electrically connects the conducting pattern to the inverter master to transfer the electric current outputted from the cold electrode. The inverter includes a circuit for uniformizing deviation of the lamp-driving voltage applied to the lamps by using the feedback current.
As the inverter slave, a printed circuit board (PCB) may be employed. The lamps may be grounded directly to the inverter slave or to a receiving container via the inverter slave.
However, according to above-mentioned backlight assembly, the lamps are respectively connected to the inverter slave. As a result, a number of steps in backlight assembly process increases, the return wiring is complex, and assembling side molds with a receiving container becomes complex. Therefore, productivity is lowered.